The articles were stacking up… here goes today’s news dump for today because I haven’t posted for a couple of days. Enjoy!

Stories of the Day

Nothing more me to say other than to please read this: “I can’t help but think of those poor kids who I gave water and toys to 11 years ago. They’re probably 15 or 16 years old now, and I can only imagine what it’s like for them to have their nation being torn apart yet again; all because of your poor leadership qualities. Regardless of why we went to Iraq, its water under the bridge. We went there, we waged war, and we not only owed it to our KIA’s but we owed it to the citizens of Iraq. We invaded their country and turned it upside down, and you bailed on them. You bailed on our soldiers and you’ve wasted every death and every limb; it’s all for nothing. And to make matters worse, you blame others for your failures. You’re just another elitist rich thug who’s pretended to live the rough life growing up in the inner-city. You’re only worried about your own agenda and furthering your party instead of taking care of Americans. Your inability to be a leader at some of the most critical points has caused both of our wars to fail. You’ve been a joke to most of our veteran community and we have no faith in your ability to lead.” Triple-Amputee Iraqi War Hero’s Letter Shames the President of the United States

I know, this one is long, but please read it. When will we say “enough is enough?” “Tea-Act-type cronyist and redistributive legislation has become the norm, and whether due to taxes, penalties, regulations, insurance premiums, or inflation — the burden on hard-working American citizens has been anything but “cut.” Numerous examples of lawlessness and corruption add to the weight that is breaking our spirits and threatening our financial and national security — fast becoming an unsustainable liability that future generations had no hand in building, yet will be asked to bear. And when we dare to balk, we’re chastised by a Democrat-media complex that portrays us as extremist, unintelligent, conspiratorial, anarchist, racist, hateful, or as warring against the environment, science, women or the poor. But still our party and pundits admonish us to be patient, choose our battles wisely, steer clear of social issues, and employ only “winning” arguments as we focus on the bigger goal of building a bigger tent. The establishment seems unwilling to deviate from that strategy unless it is presented with the perfect alignment of the perfect issue or the perfect case — or perhaps it is holding out for the perfect quantity of them. It appears doubtful, however, that any number of additions to the 76 examples listed in a Tea Party favorite Senator’s fourth report on Obama’s abuses of power would receive any serious attention. Instead, we the People are told to wait for: The Next Election. A rescue by a Republican majority — led by an establishment that we are supposed to trust to cover our breaking backs, even though we have seen it turn its back on Tea Party members and have heard its hints that “Obamacare isn’t going anywhere.” Is that last straw fluttering overhead, about to land? Will it inspire citizens to do more than vote, write letters, sign petitions, or stand in protest — but actually refuse to pay the fine, enroll in the program, follow the rules, or submit the tax? Might we find it necessary to compose a list of grievances that begins with the phrase, “When in the course of human events?” “There is a direct line from our forefathers on Griffin’s Wharf in Boston Harbor to where we stand today,” wrote Sen. Lee. “They had the courage to challenge a government that was too big and too intrusive, but also unfair. The result was the creation of an America of, by, and for the people. Our challenge today is to reclaim it.” Before that last straw breaks America’s back.” America’s Last Straw

More from the Obamacare front… The future not so rosy. I weep for our children. “More than half the expected job losses will come from small business — the once-vibrant heart of American entrepreneurship. Big business doesn’t exactly have it easy, either. General Electric, UPS, Dollar General, and Cognizant all reported lower-than-expected earnings last quarter, in part due to the “Affordable” Care Act. That means fewer opportunities for people looking to move up the corporate ladder, and fewer opportunities for entrepreneurs looking to build their own ladders, so to speak. The sound you hear is millions of doors being slammed shut by those who already have theirs — which is something you should keep in mind the next time you hear President Obama or any Democrat complaining about income inequality. Also keep this in mind, courtesy of Jay Cost at the Weekly Standard:

Liberals claim the law is “working.” This omits the dozens of provisions that the president has suspended or delayed because they were not working—for budgetary or political reasons. The suspended or postponed provisions include the mandate that businesses cover full-time employees, the cancellation of noncompliant plans, and cuts to Medicare Advantage.

One can assume that, absent a Republican in the White House come 2017, the ACA’s suspended strictures will eventually come into force, denying us even more jobs and lost opportunities to live out our own American dreams. As I said, we’re just getting started.” This Is The End: Obamacare and the end of upward mobility.

Wanted: serious adults to occupy the White House and lead America. “If the United States today looks weak, hesitant and in retreat, it is in part because its leaders and their staff do not carry themselves like adults. They may be charming, bright and attractive; they may have the best of intentions; but they do not look serious. They act as though Twitter and clenched teeth or a pout could stop invasions or rescue kidnapped children in Nigeria. They do not sound as if, when saying that some outrage is “unacceptable” or that a dictator “must go,” that they represent a government capable of doing something substantial—and, if necessary, violent—if its expectations are not met. And when reality, as it so often does, gets in the way—when, for example, the Syrian regime begins dousing its opponents with chlorine gas, as it has in recent weeks, despite solemn deals and red lines—the administration ignores it, hoping, as teenagers often do, that if they do not acknowledge a screw-up no one else will notice. The Obama administration is not alone. The teenage temperament infects our politics on both sides of the aisle, not to mention our great universities and leading corporations. The old, adult virtues—gravitas, sobriety, perseverance and constancy—are the virtues that enabled America to stabilize a shattered world in the 1940s, preserve a perilous order despite the Cold War and navigate the conclusion of that conflict. These and other stoic qualities are worth rediscovering, because their dearth among our leaders is leading them, and us and large parts of the globe, into real danger.” Selfie-Taking, Hashtagging Teenage Administration: The Obama crowd too often responds to critics and to world affairs like self-absorbed adolescents.

How can this be when we’re shrinking the size of the military? I know of many families whose children have been rejected from joining because there aren’t many openings for new recruits. “This week, the House Armed Services Committee is poised to set in train a legislative process that could well translate into the suicide of the Republican Party. The committee will consider – and, all other things being equal, may actually adopt – a controversial amendment to be offered by Rep. Mike Coffman of Colorado to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). It would allow illegal aliens brought here as minors – so-called “Dreamers” – to serve in the U.S. military and, thereby, obtain American citizenship. Should that happen, proponents of a broader amnesty for those here illegally would likely try use the House-Senate conference on this “must-pass” legislation to secure as much as possible of the “comprehensive immigration” bill adopted last year by the upper chamber. Sixteen retired flag and general officers have just written the Armed Services Committee’s chairman, Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon, urging him not to permit his panel’s principal legislation to be misused in this fashion.” GOP Suicide Watch

From nine percent in 2010 to seventeen… “Seventeen percent of blacks indicating intention to vote Republican is big news. Maybe even bigger news in that this is the Congress, as these black voters well know, that will be serving during Barack Obama’s last two years. Blacks and the Tea Party are supposed to be like oil and water. They don’t mix. But clearly this is not true.” Tea Party Alive And Well – And Influencing Blacks

Emphasis mine. “Suppose Benghazi was a catastrophic failure, made all the more dangerous by the possibility that Russia had a hand in it. If Putin, having studied how Reagan used the jihad to bring down Soviet Union, played the same game on Barack Hussein Obama, it would explain many otherwise inexplicable things. The role of Snowden. The disgrace of Petraeus. The exile of anyone and anything to do with Benghazi. The kid-gloves treatment of the Ansar attackers. The strange enmity between Hillary and Obama. Each is bound by the same secret. Each lives in fear of the same smoldering fire burning in the bowels of the administration. The lie is much more dangerous than the truth. America can live with an Obama mistake. But it can’t live with an Obama who cannot acknowledge his mistakes.”The Day Obama’s Presidency Died

The government not doing what it promised, again. “For the good of the VA, it’s time for Shinseki to step aside (or for the president to step up and fire him), but not because we need a sacrificial lamb or a fall guy to blame for the department’s failures. No, Shinseki’s departure should serve as a clear signal to all VA managers and employees that accountability is the watchword for what ails the department and that no leaders in government are immune from being held to account should they fail to get results.” Fixing the VA Requires More Than a Fall Guy: Eric Shinseki must go, but Veterans Affairs’ problems are larger than just one man.

Have we not learned from the past? “The number of Jews leaving France for Israel is up 400% in the first quarter of 2014, according to AFP. The largest remnant of Jews in Europe surviving the Holocaust is now under a new threat, one that echoes the last century’s, but with new faces and names. [Snip] The French news agency’s story does not mention the words “Muslim” or “immigrant,” but the anti-Semitism that matters today in France is far different from the imported Nazi variety or the traditional French disdain that ensnared Col. Dreyfuss. Muslims, immigrants and their French-born children, principally from North Africa, are attacking Jews on the streets and making life unpleasant for anyone identifiably Jewish.” Darkness again falls on Europe: Jews fleeing France

Amnesty

Read it and weep. “Here’s everything you need to know about immigration reform: last year the Obama administration released 36,000 criminal aliens into the United States population. The jailbreak was deliberate and included 193 murderers. The Center for Immigration Studies obtained the information and released a report documenting the number and nature of the crimes committed by the aliens. If 36,000 criminal aliens walking around your community wasn’t enough, Obama’s Department of Homeland Security is aiming to make it even easier for aliens to be released from detention. That’s what the groups agitating for immigration reform are demanding. That’s what the groups are likely to get. The 2013 jailbreak included rapists, kidnappers, arsonists, burglars, sex offenders, and car thieves. That’s merely for 2013. [Snip] After five years of Obama, it’s clear and undeniable that his presidency repeatedly takes the side of lawless criminals over law-abiding Americans. This is a common philosophy that runs through multiple Obama policies, ranging from attacks on the police, to nominating Debo Adegbile for a top Justice Department post, to failing to prosecute election criminals who supported President Obama, sometimes six times in one election. Releasing 36,007 alien criminals into America is just the latest example of this philosophy. Never before has America suffered under a president so aligned with the depraved and malignant.” Jailbreak: Obama Releases 36,007 Criminal Aliens Into U.S.

Benghazi

Clearing their name while find out the names of the liars. “That makes a refusal to cooperate even more untenable than before. If two of the probe’s potential targets have endorsed the select committee, why would House Democrats balk at participating? Perhaps they’re more concerned that the facts will tend to exonerate Panetta and Morell and put the blame directly on State and the White House. With these two endorsing a new investigation, though, merely sitting out won’t be enough to protect either State or the White House. Expect Democrats to name their members soon — before Republicans get a chance to hit the ground running.” Panetta, Morell agree: Benghazi select committee is legitimate

All Americans should want answers. “As a citizen, I would like to hear answers to these questions: -Why weren’t we more prepared on another anniversary of Sept. 11? What were we doing in Benghazi anyway? -Why didn’t we try to rescue fellow citizens under fire on foreign soil for hours? Wasn’t there an aircraft carrier under alert on the anniversary of September 11th? -Why didn’t the President Obama tell us what happened? He never addressed the nation and avoided the issue altogether until he was confronted. Maybe I’m wrong but I’m betting that Rep Gowdy will get to the bottom of this and the findings won’t be pretty.” My guess is that Rep. Gowdy took the job because he believes that there is something there

Where oh where have the honest Democrats gone? “Where is the Democrats’ Howard Baker? Where is the courageous member of President Obama’s party willing to stand up and ask, “What did the president know, and when did he know it?” [Snip] That is precisely what happened in 1973 when Tennessee Republican Sen. Howard Baker, a minority member of the Senate Watergate Committee, famously asked what President Nixon knew and when did he know it about the botched 1972 break-in of the Democratic National Committee offices in Washington. The question was not a bombshell because it was asked. It was a bombshell because it was asked by a Republican senator about a Republican president who was being accused, mostly by Democrats, of engaging in a coverup regarding the DNC break-in. Baker helped bring Watergate out of the shadow of partisanship and into the sunlight of serious inquiry. When he took an adversarial role against the president of his own party, he added muscle and credibility to the Democrat-led hearings. And the nation sat transfixed, even while on vacation, as those hearings played out on TV in the summer of ’73.” Who will be Benghazi truth-seeker? Democrats’ need a Howard Baker to put truth over partisanship.

Tell us something we didn’t already know. “Nancy Pelosi’s national-security policy rests on short memories and her contempt for voters.” Burying Benghazi

Strategy. “Benghazi, crazy. That’s the association the White House and its allies want to encourage as a House Select Committee begins what should be the most thorough investigation of the Benghazi attacks to date. The White House wants to delegitimize the process before it begins and preemptively discredit the findings. So last week senior White House adviser David Plouffe claimed that “a very loud, delusional minority” is driving the Republicans on Benghazi, and former representative Jane Harman compared questions about Benghazi to conspiracy theories about Vince Foster and aliens. [Snip] But the Obama administration’s strategy isn’t intended for the country at large so much as it is for the Washington press corps. The goal is to convince reporters that by investigating Benghazi they are doing the bidding of crackpots and political hacks. The White House is betting that journalists are more cynical about House Republicans and their motives than they are about the Obama administration’s mendacity on Benghazi. There’s some evidence that’s right.” Who’s Crazy?

Common sense. “A school district in Chicago’s northwest suburbs is quitting the National School Lunch Program over new regulations championed by first lady Michelle Obama. The so-called Smart Snacks in School policy, set to take effect on July 1, is the latest attempt by our Regulator-in-Chief to dictate every aspect of Americans’ behavior. It dictates strict calorie, sodium, fat, and sugar guidelines for any food sold in schools during the day. That even includes the ubiquitous bake sales and other fundraisers. Instead of forcing the school district’s 500 low income kids and others to eat “healthier,” however, the administration is only creating uncertainty for them. Arlington Heights Township High School District 214 gave the feds the heave-ho rather than submit, even though it will lose a $900,000 federal subsidy. Board members, however, said that it’s “relatively certain” that the new regulations would take a sizeable bite out of other revenue: its $2.2 million that comes from its a la carte menu, which sells things like pizza, fries, and Subway sandwiches; and its $543,000 annual vending machine revenue. School districts cannot forego that kind of revenue, especially these days, without hurting education.” Chicago suburb tells feds to keep their money — and their regulations

Boko Haram

Playing the blame game instead of accepting reality. “Why was Hillary Clinton’s State Department so notoriously slow to recognize a terrorist group?” “1. Their leader has said: “The reason why I will kill you is you are infidels.” On Wednesday, John Kerry blamed the phenomenon of Boko Haram on poverty:

Much of this challenge comes out of this poverty where young people are grabbed at an early stage, proffered a little bit of money. Their minds are bended, and then the money doesn’t matter anymore. They’ve got the minds, and they begin to direct them into these very extreme endeavors.

Among those who would disagree that throwing money at Boko Haram will make their jihad go away would be none other than Abubakar Shekau, who has said:

The reason why I will kill you is you are infidels, you follow Democracy.…Whoever follows Democracy is an infidel. This is Shekau, this is why I’m in enmity with you….You are all infidels. What makes you infidels is Democracy and constitution and western education…I therefore call on brethren in Kano to rise up and replicate the Baga attack. All these infidels we are the ones killing them. We enjoy shedding their blood. The Qur’an must be supreme, we must establish Islam in this country.

The Left just doesn’t want to face reality. “As he concludes his speech, he leaves no room for doubt: “To the people of the world, everybody should know his status: it is either you are with us Mujahedeen or you are with the Christians… We know what is happening in this world, it is a Jihad war against Christians and Christianity. It is a war against western education, democracy and constitution. We have not started, next time we are going inside Abuja; we are going to refinery and town of Christians. Do you know me? I have no problem with Jonathan. This is what I know in Quran. This is a war against Christians and democracy and their constitution, Allah says we should finish them when we get them.” There can be very little doubt about what is motivating Shekau and his followers. What is truly amazing is the extent to which the focus on Boko Haram’s hostages has overshadowed a very clear statement about motivation. No, the problem is not simply girls going to school. It is much, much broader and the fact that Western journalists, diplomats, and the first lady of the United States are ignoring this aspect of the Boko Haram outrage really does suggest the extent to which the West simply does not understand the ideological motivations driving terrorism against it.” It’s About Christianity, Not the Girls

Not going away for a long, long, long, long time. “Like it or not, the West is locked in a long war with Islamist terror. Retreating from Iraq and Afghanistan won’t end it. Nor will détente with Iran or pressure on Israel. It will require patience that democracies often lack and a willingness to maintain both vigilance and an aggressive policy that keeps America engaged even when we’d rather stay at home and tend our own gardens. But most of all it will require Americans, both the ordinary person in the street as well as the Hollywood elite, to understand that incidents like the Boko Haram abduction can’t be isolated from a conflict they would rather forget or pretend was merely a function of Bush administration policy. So tweet about the girls all you want, Hollywood. But while you’re tweeting about the girls in between attending fundraisers for the president who has weakened our ability to influence events abroad, just remember that if you really want to help the girls and the countless other potential victims of Islamist terror, you need to also support a strong America and the use of force to defend the values we all believe in.” Boko Haram and the Liberal Elites

Failure. “It’s the height of irony — or hypocrisy — that Hillary Clinton would be leading the charge against Boko Haram now after her State Department failed to even designate them a terrorist group until John Kerry became secretary in 2013. Christians are being oppressed and murdered all over the world from North Korea, through Indonesia, to the Middle East. It’s the best kept secret in the west, rarely being covered in the press except for religious media. Meanwhile, Western governments condemn Islamophobia while turning a blind eye to the murder of Christian innocents. Perhaps it’s time to save some of that outrage for those of the Christian faith who find themselves the targets of terrorists, fanatical Muslims, and governments.” Plenty of Outrage for Kidnapped School Girls; None for Massacred Christians

It’s all politics all the time for these people. “The U.S. State Department’s delay in giving “terrorist” designation to Boko Haram had real policy consequences. It helped the Obama campaign narrative that al-Qaeda was on the run. But it didn’t help Nigeria, whose girls and boys, men and women, Christians and Muslims are now paying with their lives and living in dread of a larger, more powerful Boko Haram.” The Obama State Department’s Understanding of Boko Haram Was Even More Delusional than You Thought

California

For California, the only thing that could save it IS a miracle. The unions, plus redistricting, have just done too much damage. “I don’t see a miracle in California. I do see a point where even liberals will have to come to their senses and see the handwriting on the wall. My friends in California tell me that the Toyota move to Texas shook up the political class. Unfortunately, they will need a few more before real change happens. In other words, things will have to get worse in California before they get better.” From ‘California dreamin’ to ‘California “leavin”

College Debt

For all you parents out there who paid for your child’s college education, you are just a bunch of suckers. “Just days after proposing a massive bailout of indebted students that would subsidize their college loans and forgive some of their financial obligations, far-left Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts said she has no idea why people think she is a socialist. Her bill, the Bank on Students Emergency Loan Refinancing Act, would lower the amount of money that students are obligated to repay to the federal government. If enacted, the bill would deprive the federal government of billions of dollars in interest payments owed to its shareholders: the American taxpayers. It is Warren’s belief that students — who voluntarily signed up for the loans and agreed to pay them back at certain interest rates — should be let off the hook.” Liz Warren Is Confused: Why Do They Think I’m A Socialist?

Hillary Clinton

Please not, Hillary. Our country can’t take more Leftist policy. “Does anyone — besides Lewinsky, who has written so eloquently about her nightmare in Vanity Fair — see how wrong it is to still blame the intern 16 years later? Worse, during that time, these two immoral, expectant Presidents-for-life not only got rich, but got away with smearing all the women with whom Bill got caught — and the numbers are legion — during his life of pathological, predatory sexual behavior. Isn’t it about time that female voters in this country stopped marching in lockstep to the inevitable presidency of Hillary? This is a presumed presidential candidate whose last presidential campaign was often based on her husband’s achievements, including campaign buttons sold inside her stump stops that touted her marriage to Bill. The achievements she claimed for herself, such as being instrumental in negotiating the peace in Northern Ireland and bravely running from possible sniper fire with her daughter in Bosnia, were bizarre lies. Her scheme for universal health care, devised by a panel of lawyers? Right.” Stasi: Monica Lewinsky’s story reminds us Bill Clinton is to blame, Hillary Clinton doesn’t deserve female voter support

Just say no! “Bill’s disgusting behavior and the more recent efforts to cover up Hillary’s responsibility for the events leading to the murder of our ambassador and three other Americans in Benghazi are nothing out of the ordinary for this pair. In his stunning 2003 book Dereliction of Duty, Air Force Lt. Col. Robert “Buzz” Patterson, a presidential aide and carrier of the “nuclear football,” offers many examples of President Clinton’s gross irresponsibility and reprehensible behavior. He describes an incident in which the president — the commander-in-chief — groped a female steward on Air Force One. As an enlisted person in the U.S. Air Force, she opted not to make an issue of it and settled for a personal apology from the president. (This has been confirmed to me by a former pilot of Air Force One.) Patterson wrote: “I brooded over the fact that if our commander in chief had been actually serving in the armed services, he would have been jailed. His immunity struck me as completely unacceptable.” Hillary herself has more baggage than could fit into Air Force One. Perhaps the largest and most malodorous piece is the mysterious disappearance and reappearance of court-subpoenaed law-firm records belonging to her. After going missing for years, they suddenly turned up in her book room on the third floor of the White House. The FBI’s fingerprint analysis of the billing records revealed only the prints of Hillary and White House lawyer Vince Foster, who had committed suicide under suspicious circumstances. The records were needed to show the extent of Hillary’s legal work for a savings and loan involved in fraud. Although Hillary has consistently denied knowing how the billing records found their way to her book room, the Senate’s Whitewater investigation of shady financial dealings in Arkansas by the Clintons’ friends and associates concluded that Hillary was the person most likely to have put the billing records in her book room, or to know how they got there. Shortly after the discovery of the records, Hillary made history by becoming the first First Lady ever to appear before a grand jury inquiry. Haven’t we had enough of government officials lying to us and covering up their misdeeds? Don’t we deserve more transparency, honesty and integrity? It’s long since time for the Clintons to go. Why would we ever want them back?” I’m Sick To Death Of Bill And Hillary

Common Core

Good! “All politics is local. So Republican politicians with national ambitions better pay attention to what grassroots parents are saying and doing about the federal education racket known as Common Core. In bellwether Indiana this week, anti-Common Core activists won a pair of pivotal electoral victories against GOP Gov. Mike Pence.” Good Riddance: Common Core Backlash Claims New Political Casualties

Does this make the Chicago Teacher’s Union “far right extremists” as well? “The Southern Poverty Law Center must be in dire need of funds. Their latest fundraising ploy is to brand opponents of Common Core as “far right extremists.” In other words, Common Core foes have now been lumped in with neo nazis, skinheads and militias in the eyes of the SPLC. No doubt designating them a “hate group” can’t be far behind. [Snip] What an incredible lie – that Common Core opponents want to destroy public schools. It’s this kind of hysterical exaggeration that the SPLC has become famous for – and for which they raise millions of dollars off of. I find it ironic that they would accuse ordinary American of extremism when they themselves are among the biggest leftist bomb throwers in the country.” Common Core opponents labeled ‘far right extremists’ by far left SPLC

Saying whatever he needs to get elected. “Crist apparently went on Jorge Ramos’s show on Fusion TV and said: “I couldn’t be consistent with myself and my core beliefs, and stay with a party that was so unfriendly toward the African-American president, I’ll just go there.” Crist added: “I was a Republican and I saw the activists and what they were doing; it was intolerable to me.” Now, this isn’t merely a lie. We are used to politicians telling us they can and will “eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse,” that they won’t take money from lobbyists, that they can give you seven-minute abs in six minutes and all of that. This is different. This is the sort of lying that makes God look over the top of his morning newspaper the way a dad looks at his kid when the boy’s making fart sounds with his armpit at the breakfast table. This is the kind of lying you expect of Vichy politicians as they run into the room after hastily putting on their “Vive la Resistance!” T-shirt for the first time. He’s not simply making this nonsense up. He’s actually claiming moral conviction he doesn’t have and bravery he hasn’t earned in order to advance a lie no honorable man would ever utter. His weaselly “I’ll just go there” line is the kind of courage-on-the-cheap that you’d expect from the guy who tried to sell out Bruce Willis to Hans Gruber in Die Hard. But at least that shmuck had an air of plausibility. Let me put it another way: It is the kind of lying that not even the “The Fix” can let stand. I don’t mean to be unkind to Cillizza, but the simple fact is that normally when a former Republican says the GOP is racist, it is de rigueur for the MSM to either hype such statements so that they will ultimately yield a 20-minute round of head-nodding celebration on Morning Joe or at least let them go unchallenged so that they can serve as an under-examined “one example among many” of GOP racism.” Charlie Crist: An Oxymoron (with a Silent ‘Oxy’)

For some hope, click on over and read the entire thing. “In 1990, there were no charter schools, home schooling was widely illegal and only the first student voucher programs were just beginning in Milwaukee. Today, there are 1 million children in charter schools, 2 million children being home-schooled and hundreds of thousands of students in voucher programs from Arizona to Indiana to Tennessee. These form the basis of emerging constituencies, consisting of millions of parents, with interests in opposition to or in tension with those of teacher unions. Increasingly, the unions’ claims that they are the only champions of “the kids” are coming into question. All these eddies and currents have the potential to shift the nation’s political focus and partisan balance, in various directions. Any single, straight-line extrapolation, like those from the 2008 exit poll, risks missing the next turn in the political road.” Demographics may be destiny — but not one political direction

Let’s create a new “America” party! Mike Lee can be it’s leader. “Republicans can make the 2014 election a referendum on corporate welfare, forcing Democrats to defend government handouts to well-connected big businesses. That is, if Republicans actually oppose government handouts to well-connected big businesses. The Obama administration and congressional Democrats line up squarely with K Street on many pressing issues today. Congressional conservatives and activist groups are itching for a fight. And there are many potential battlefields.” [Snip] Lee advocated a free-market populist agenda for the GOP: policies to materially help the working class, to enhance opportunities for the middle class and to curb politically granted privileges for the elites. [Snip] ‘The more power government amasses,” Lee said, “the more privileges are bestowed on the government’s friends, the more businesses invest in influence instead of innovation, the more advantages accrue to the biggest special interests with the most to spend on politics and the most to lose from fair competition.’” Mike Lee’s agenda could make 2014 elections about crony capitalism

Better than good—awesome! “The big debate in electoral politics these days is not whether the national environment will be bad for Democrats this November but rather how bad it will be. A new chart put together by Public Opinion Strategies, a Republican polling firm, suggests things could be worse for Democrats than even recent wave elections from 1994 through 2010. (Yes, POS is a GOP polling firm but the data in the chart is taken from the NBC-Wall Street Journal April survey, which they, along with a Democratic firm, help to conduct.)” This chart should scare Democrats

Facism

I am so tired of this. We must vote with our wallets and eye balls. In this case, write HGTV and tell them you will no longer watch. I did. And I won’t watch ever again. My parents wrote too, and they will never watch again either. And it is one of our favorite channels… “Future students of language will wonder at the period in our history in which it was said with a straight face that diversity required uniformity, tolerance necessitated intolerance, and liberalism called for dogma. Of late, we have been told that Brandeis University is simply too open-minded to hear from a critic of Islam, that Mozilla believes too vehemently in “freedom of speech” to refrain from punishing a man for his private views, and that a respect for the audience of a show about duck hunting demands that we suspend a man for expressing his religious views in an unrelated interview. “Never,” David Benham confirmed in an interview with CNN, “have I spoken against homosexuals, as individuals, and gone against them. I speak about an agenda.” Later, he added that “that’s really what the point of this is — that there is an agenda that is seeking to silence the voices of men and women of faith.” Say, now where might he have got hold of that idea?” The New Fascism Rolls On: Now it’s twin brothers with a home-decorating show who can’t hold heterodox political views.

Foreign Policy

Weak and Weaker… “But what Obama and Kerry are really worried about is the possibility that Iran won’t even grant them a bad deal but will instead blow off the entire process and to proceed directly to nuclear capability. If so, their fatal weakness will be exposed as a reality rather than merely a conservative talking point, leaving them a choice between ramping up the conflict and complete capitulation. That’s exactly the mindset Khamenei and Rouhani are counting on to deliver them a meaningless agreement that can either be signed or ignored. Either way, Iran seems closer to its nuclear goal today than it did before Obama’s interim capitulation.” Iran Counting on Obama’s Weakness

Jumping on board of the enemy train. “Obama will eventually adopt the Russian line on Ukraine if for no other reason than to avoid exposing his own impotence. It’s why Obama has adopted the Iranian position on its nuclear weapons program, accepted Russia’s Syrian WMD deal and why Kerry and his cronies are busy blaming Israel for the collapse of peace negotiations that were actually sabotaged by the PLO leader. If you can’t beat them, join them. And Obama can’t beat them. Joining them is his only option.” Obama’s Foreign Policy: One Big Coverup

IRS

Everyone should be worried about this, not just conservatives. “Many of the press accounts we read suggest there is no scandal here unless the targeting of Americans for their conservative political beliefs can be tied back to President Obama or the White House. We beg to differ. Wouldn’t it be even more frightening if a federal agency as powerful as the IRS on its own decided to use its vast powers to squelch others on the basis of politics and ideology?” IRS SCANDAL UPDATE: New York Post

Let’s get to the bottom of this sometime in this century… “Sometimes, behavior is heinous but essentially private — i.e., of interest mainly to the people directly affected by the misconduct. In such cases, the priority is to prosecute and punish the wrongdoers, so you obviously resist granting immunity to a culpable party. In other situations, reprehensible behavior affects the public at large. This is almost always the case when government power has been abused: The gravity of the misconduct transcends the injury to the private parties directly affected. It portends rampant violation of fundamental rights and undermines our trust in faithful execution of the laws. In such circumstances, it is imperative to achieve political accountability and a complete record of what went wrong so that any necessary policy changes can be made. Holding wrongdoers criminally culpable is secondary. Further, even if criminal accountability were a priority, the point would be to identify the highest-ranking wrongdoers — the people who are insulated and cannot be reached absent testimony from their accomplices. Lois Lerner clearly presents the second situation . . . though that is apparently less than clear to the folks running the House. Asked about the IRS scandal recently, Speaker Boehner declared, “I don’t care who is going to be fired. I want to know who is going to jail!” That’s a good, fiery sound bite for the campaign season, but it’s exactly wrong. When officials prove unfit for government power, taking that power away is the highest public interest. Even if you’ve deluded yourself into thinking the Obama Justice Department would lift a finger to prosecute Lois Lerner, who cares if she ever sees the inside of a jail cell? What matters is laying bare the entirety of the scheme and finding out how high it goes: Who and what induced her to orchestrate the harassment of conservative groups? Why was the government’s fearsome tax agency placed in the service of the Democratic party’s political needs? To get the answers to those questions, you need Ms. Lerner to testify. Instead, the House has wasted a full year chewing over a tough legal issue that, even if it were ultimately resolved in the Oversight Committee’s favor, would not get her any closer to answering questions — at least not for a long time.” Why Lois Lerner Should Be Granted Immunity: It’s the only way for the House to get to the bottom of the IRS abuses.

“Caron concludes: “Step one should be to give Lois Lerner full immunity from prosecution in exchange for her testimony. And then let the chips fall where they may.” Caron’s column lays out the key elements of the scandal (although he omits any reference to the audits of individual Republican contributors explored by Kim Strassel, as in this column). Caron’s column makes a contribution to understanding. I hope interested readers will check it out. Now with the warrant of Caron’s column I add my usual reminder. Nixon’s efforts to misuse the IRS were futile. They went nowhere. Nixon and his henchmen desired the IRS to “screw” their political opponents, but their efforts were a pathetic failure. Nixon henchman Jack Caulfield astutely complained that the IRS was a “monstrous bureaucracy…dominated and controlled by Democrats.” As we have come to see, Caulfield was on to something. By contrast with Nixon’s failures to misuse the IRS, the IRS has very effectively “screwed” Obama’s political opponents, and we have yet to learn what the president knew and when he knew it.” THE IRS SCANDAL FOR DUMMIES

Islam

This is what “brave” looks like. “’Until the imam started with his shouting [“Allahu Akbar!”], I did not really know what to do. I was just prepared for what God wants me to do,’ she told CBN News. Then the Muslim call to prayer began, and Heidi said she felt something rising up inside her. “I would call it a holy anger,” she recounted. “And then I rose with my flag and I was calling and proclaiming that Jesus Christ is Lord over Germany”… And she repeated the words of Martin Luther in 1521 after he refused to recant his faith in scripture alone: “Here I stand. I can do no other” and “Save the church of Martin Luther!” Video shows another concert-goer trying to calm her by saying, “This is a concert for peace.” Mund can be heard responding in German, “No it’s not! Allahu Akbar is what Muslims scream while murdering people! Don’t be fooled! Don’t be fooled! This is a lie!” She was thrown out of the church. “They should have thrown the imam out and not me because I am a believer in Jesus Christ, but he serves another god. This Allah is not the same god. And this is not the truth.” ‘This ‘allahu akbar,’ they use it when they kill people,” she argued. “This is, for me, worship to an idol, to their god. And when a Muslim calls ‘allahu akbar’ in a church, that means this church is not a church anymore, it’s a mosque.’” The ‘Brave German Woman’ and Europe’s Islam Question

The Left

Read the whole thing, and send it to your friends who think our country’s move to socialism is a good thing.Emphasis mine. “I had to lie to get into the country. Customs and immigration officials at Havana’s tiny, dreary José Martí International Airport would have evicted me had they known I was a journalist. But not even a total-surveillance police state can keep track of everything and everyone all the time, so I slipped through. It felt like a victory. Havana, the capital, is clean and safe, but there’s nothing to buy. It feels less natural and organic than any city I’ve ever visited. Initially, I found Havana pleasant, partly because I wasn’t supposed to be there and partly because I felt as though I had journeyed backward in time. But the city wasn’t pleasant for long, and it certainly isn’t pleasant for the people living there. It hasn’t been so for decades.” The Last Communist City: A visit to the dystopian Havana that tourists never see

We’re not imagining it… “Is it just me, or has the culture war between right and left been escalating wildly over the past few months? Everywhere you turn, there is another leftist assault on traditional values, as well as the occasional volley fired back by the retreating forces of Christianity and sanity. This is not a fight about religion; it is a fight about freedom — and believe it or not, the Judeo-Christian tradition provides the philosophical underpinnings of Western culture, which in contradistinction to every other long-lasting culture on the planet, values the individual over the collective, and thus values individual freedom over the whims of the state. Or, at least, it did. Now, however, we are seeing the fundamental transformation of Western culture and even Christianity itself into a monolithic, totalitarian society in which the state — with the acquiescence of the people — controls all aspects of public and private life. Call it 1984+30, the nightmare scenario created by novelist George Orwell in his “1984” but with 30 more years to perfect the program. “War is Peace” — check. “Ignorance is Strength” — check. “Freedom is Slavery” — check. But also “Truth is a Lie” — check. And “Law is Oppression” — double check.” A front-row seat at the culture war

Fractures. “Liberalism today is destined to be an unstable political isotope because it has accumulated too many disparate “causes,” and acquiesces to every grievance and pressure group. Pretty soon the difference causes start to turn on one another, not merely because resources are scarce but because their causes will come in conflict. What’s a liberal president to do when labor unions favor the Keystone pipeline while environmentalists oppose it? Actually, this one is easy: you go with who raises more money for you, which right now is the environmentalists.” CIVIL WAR ON THE LEFT, PART 6

Not all women created equal, just those who are willing to remain part of the victim class, or those who want free stuff, like free birth control and free college. “So why are women like Day, Rice, and Romney ostracized by the political party that says they’re fighting on their behalf in the War on Women? Because, per the usual,Democrats are being disingenuous. The irony in all this is that Democrats are fashioning themselves as liberators, but are requiring the women they’re supposedly liberating to conform to party standards. Where’s the freedom in that? For centuries women have been told to stay in their pre-set social positions — to behave. How, then, do Democrats propose they’re offering a savory political alternative to women if those women they’re courting are forced into rigid partisan orthodoxy? Women who don’t wholly subscribe to the Democrat canon are either sidelined like Day or caricatured as yahoos along with the likes of right-wing firebrands (and female sellouts, of course) Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann.” Democrats to Women: Conform or be Caricatured

Solutions offered but you have to click on over to find out what they are. “Our colleges and universities have become infectious breeding grounds of the left, fattening their tills as the students are yoked to untenable loans to pay for often useless educations they provide. The federal government encourages this bubble, undermines free speech and due process on campus by regulation and encourages young people to enslave themselves in this way. Is there a way out?” Time to Mount the Academic Ramparts, Clean House, and Free the Serfs

Mainstream Media

This is the kind of stuff that is so depressing. “File this under “Epic Fails: Layers of Editors.” National Review’s Ramesh Ponnuru submitted a requested column to the Washington Post’s Outlook section. After several rounds of mutually agreed-upon edits, the geniuses at WaPo made a final change without consulting Ponnuru. That change inserted erroneous information into what had been an otherwise clean column. The Post then published two letters to the editor criticizing Ponnuru for the error WaPo had created. That caused Ponnuru to demand a correction, which he ultimately received. Amazon.com CEO and WaPo owner Jeff Bezos really needs to take a hard look at the leftist koolaid-drinking Keystone Cops operation for which he massively overpaid. Otherwise, the default assumption will be that he’s fine with the completely unacceptable status quo.” WaPo Editors Insert Error Into National Review Writer’s Submission, Then Let Others Rip Him

We wouldn’t expect anything else. “National Public Radio has named a new CEO, Jarl Mohn, aka Lee Masters. Mr. Mohn (his first name is promounced “Yarl”) was formerly known as Lee Masters when he was a radio DJ, and an executive at MTV, CNET, and E! Entertainment. Needless to say, he is a hard core leftist, having “contributed $217,000, most of it going to Democratic candidates and political committees,” according to NPR itself. Since 1990. Among other candidates, he has backed far left candidate Robert Reich, for whom Barack Obama is too conservative, in his failed attempt to win the Democrat nomination for Massachusetts governor, according to theWashington Post.” NPR names new CEO, a major Democrat donor

Minimum Wage

Joe being Joe. “Vice President Joe Biden likes to hold up for ridicule current critics of the minimum wage by pointing to the foolish negative reaction to the formal introduction of a federal statutory wage, back in 1938. “Now at the time,” Biden has said, in reference to the 1930s, “many said this would lead to job losses. Seriously.” The vice president has it exactly backward. Many of us have always suspected that upward pressure on wages in the 1930s can’t have made it easier to hire. But only lately, in the last 10 or 15 years, has newer research formed a complete picture of what happened in the 1930s. It seems that the policy of upward pressure on wages, which is the idea of the minimum wage, made the Depression worse. [Snip] The result, as scholars Lee Ohanian, Harold Cole, and others have discovered, is a tragic perversity. In a depression. when employers were losing money, wages were too high. In real terms, wages were higher than the overall economic trend for the rest of the century. They were sometimes higher than in “socialist” Europe. Wages in the 1930s were even higher than John L. Lewis himself imagined, because the decade saw currency deflation. Reducing wages, the old lesser evil chosen by employers in troubled times, would not be sanctioned by the powerful New Dealers in Washington. So employers often laid people off — hence the mostly double-digit unemployment of the 1930s.” The Minimum Wage Makes Depressions Worse: Joe Biden thinks it helped end the Great Depression. It actually extended it.

Monetary Policy

Not learning from history, again. “In a distant galaxy, in a land far away governed by the law of economics, an increase in supply would have a resultant effect on price. More of something would reduce the price of that something. Hence, more debt sold via bonds and notes would depress the price of both, resulting in higher interest rates. The interest rates paid on thatdebt is the cost of “servicing” the debt. The higher that “service,” the higher the cost to those who create the debt. The higher cost would thus deter further creation of debt. An economic balance would ensue. Japan is our lead indicator in detecting the ramifications of zero interest rate policy (ZIRP). Japan was the first, about 15 years ago, to move to this policy. The United States via the strangely empowered Federal Reserve followed in a knee jerk reaction to the 2008 financial meltdown. The “knee jerk” reaction has thus morphed to a permanent policy. There is pretense that a special and clever “exit” is possible. Ben Bernanke even outlined such in a Wall Street Journal article. That was nearly five years ago. Yellen now keeps the “promise” alive, and will likely hand it off to her successor. For the fact is that no country has gone to a ZIRP and exited the policy. [Snip] Japan has shown us where we are headed. We turn our heads, divert our eyes, and pretend it won’t happen. History will shake its head. Our country suddenly, via the Federal Reserve and their protracted “emergency” policy of ZIRP, has left the free market economy and its market forces to the delight of the debt creators. Question the Federal Reserve, for they embody a departure from a free market society and lead us to the fate of Japan.Market Discipline and the Glaring Correlation that Bernanke and Yellen Ignore

Obama Administration

If the U.S. government was a private employer, this would be grounds for an employer harassment law suit. “If all who love liberty are rightly upset by an administration’s harassment of conservative groups for political ends, we should be even more outraged when the administration, while playing political hardball, mistreats an entire state’s ordinary, apolitical citizens. From the earliest days of his presidency, Barack Obama has shown a particular animus against Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal, and has repeatedly held Louisiana citizens hostage to that animus. The latest outrage came via a May 2 letter from the national Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) disapproving Jindal’s brilliant semi-privatization of state hospitals that, in less than a year, already has resulted in better patient services across the board – thus putting at risk hundreds of millions of dollars in ordinary federal reimbursement for indigent care.” Obama’s War on Louisiana: The latest attack is on state hospitals

Lies and more lies. “Conservative radio host Laura Ingraham joined the hosts of Fox & Friends to weigh in on former Treasury Sec. Timothy Geithner’s revelation that he was asked by White House political staffers to downplay Social Security as a driver of the nation’s debt so as not to offend the Democratic base. Ingraham said that Geithner had a duty to resign when he was asked to mislead the public and he should not have disclosed these revelations in a book. In his book, Geithner revealed that Senior Advisor to the President for Strategy and Communications Dan Pfeifferasked him to de-emphasize the impact Social Security has on America’s deficit ahead of an appearance on the Sunday talk shows. Pfeiffer said that calling Social Security a deficit driver would serve as a “’dog whistle’ to the left.’” Ingraham: Geithner Should Have Resigned When WH Asked Him to Mislead Public

More on the above story. “Charles Krauthammer told viewers Monday on “Special Report with Bret Baier” that a moment recounted in former Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s new memoir shows that the Obama administration has a “less than arm’s length relationship with the truth.” ‘It’s less than arm’s length – it is actually a clearly manipulative relationship with the truth,” Krauthammer said. “That it is to be used, or abused, or inverted, in order to, quote, ‘send a message,’ to send a dog signal.’” Krauthammer: Administration has ‘manipulative relationship with the truth’?

Unreal. Emphasis mine. “ObamaCare is settled law, you see. It’s the law of the land and you all need to learn to simplymove on with your lives. At this point, for better or worse, we surely must know everything there is to be known about the Affordable Care Act. (After all, we had to pass the law to know what’s in the law and we passed it, right?) As it turns out, there may still be some bits and pieces to come which, while not entirely unknown, have not received the same level of scrutiny as the mandates and cancellation of plans and such. One of them is known as the Health Insurance Tax, or HIT. Dan Danner, in a piece for Fox, explains the rather insidious nature of this wrinkle.

To add insult to injury, a hidden tax within the law is coming to light that threatens the very livelihood of thousands of U.S. businesses and millions of American workers. Known as the health insurance tax or HIT, this is a new discriminatory tax on small businesses and their employees that will raise the premiums by as much as $500 per policy per year.

Main Street enterprises are now being faced with the choice of eating the costs, passing it on to their employees, ending coverage altogether or other unexpected decisions impacting their operations and workers.

Adding to the confusion is the fact that the cost of the tax is only going to grow over time – collecting an estimated $145 billion from small businesses in the first ten years alone and making it that much harder for business owners to prepare for the future.

Ironically, during one of the ACA’s many back door deals, large corporations and unions received a carve-out from the HIT, leaving the full burden of the tax to fall on the fully-insured marketplace, where nearly 90 percent of small businesses, their employees and the self-employed purchase their insurance.” Small business to take the HIT from Obamacare

November is coming. “The results suggest that Democrats, in their euphoria over the “8 million” sign-ups to Obamacare, made a mistake in concluding that signups equal approval. In truth, a significant number of those signing up for health coverage on the exchanges might be unhappy about losing coverage elsewhere, or unhappy about the (unsubsidized) price they are paying, or dissatisfied with the choices available under their new coverage. “Can’t assume the millions who’ve signed up for Obamacare are happy with it,” the blogger Mickey Kaus tweeted recently. “Millions have signed up for Time-Warner Cable.” With no offense to cable companies, Kaus had a point: Just because people have purchased something — in the case of Obamacare, under penalty of law — doesn’t mean they like it.” Dems mistake 8 million sign-ups as happiness with Obamacare

“But Obamacare’s champions have greatly exaggerated what this good involves, and so what it should mean for our overall assessment of the law. During the battle to enact Obamacare, and subsequently, supporters have claimed that the expansion would save thousands of lives. A study of Oregon Medicaid recipients — the best such study we have — has instead found that coverage did not significantly improve any physical health outcomes. If the value of insurance is that it protects against financial calamity, then the approach of Obamacare is radically misconceived: We ought instead to have undertaken reforms to enable everyone to purchase catastrophic coverage. In other words, different policies could have achieved the good that Obamacare has done, at much lower cost. Or perhaps even more good, since the expansion has included fewer people than expected. Obamacare’s near-death experience during the last months of 2013 has distorted the media’s treatment of the program, making it seem more successful than it is. From 2009 through mid 2013, the critics were not saying that the exchange websites would be a catastrophic failure. They were, by and large, taken by surprise as much as the administration was by their early dysfunction. Leaving aside those chaotic months, the picture of Obamacare today looks more like one the critics painted than the one supporters did: a lot of trouble for a small gain.” Notice Not Obamacare

President Obama

“As Barack Obama enters the twilight of his tenure, the debate over his legacy is ­beginning, but one conclusion already seems certain. It can best be described as “Honey, I shrunk the presidency.” Not since Jimmy Carter was held hostage by Iran has the Oval Office seemed so inconsequential against the forces of international darkness. The mismatch is particularly striking because smallness has been Obama’s choice. Although he is guilty of executive overreach at home, that bully behavior only sharpens the contrast with a foreign policy that is feeble when it is not comatose. The president’s estrangement from the demands of global leadership is giving a green light to tyrants and malevolent opportunists everywhere. [Snip] The speech reflects how little Obama has grown in office. He initially viewed American power as a problem that needed to be checked if the world was to find lasting peace and harmony. By and large, he followed that bad prescription by deliberately shrinking America’s global footprint, and the result is the astonishing chaos we see around us. The vacuum is being filled not with democratic movements but by al Qaeda, China, Russia and other authoritarian regimes eager to take advantage of our retreat. Obama’s view of the world was wrong, and his policies are making it more dangerous and less stable. Yet he is still sounding the call to retreat, proposing new cuts to the military that would shrink it to pre-World War II levels.” Obama shrinks away in the face of evil

Terrorism

Sliding back in time. “The campaign to disarm the NYPD in the war against terror is part and parcel of the attempt to transform the 9/11 narrative from one of Islamists at war with the United States to one in which Muslims are portrayed as the true victims of the attacks. This is not only a libel against America; if it persists it will make it more likely that law enforcement will fail to stop the next 9/11. Those who haven’t succumbed to the siren song of this false approach need to draw the line and insist that the NYPD be allowed to continue seeking intelligence about terrorism in the places where it is most likely to be found.” Disarming the NYPD Against Terror

With the election fading further into our rear view mirrors, let's have some fun!

At our December Christmas luncheon, we are thrilled to be able to present to you the talented A Capella Syndicate, the Phoenix Area's newest musical sound.

The group is a singing brotherhood that promotes harmony in our community through performances and outreach. They've recently joined the Barbershop Harmony Society, the world's largest men's singing organization and are the 2016 Far Western Arizona Division champions.

Bring your friends and family!

We promise you will get goose bumps as they sing to us all of our holiday favorites! We hope to see you there!